Friday, March 10, 2017

Bedeviling God

A dear friend was able to find an affordable apartment after
much aggravation from dreadful neighbors in her old residence as well as
financial problems.She promptly thanked
God for helping her.

According to her bedrock Christian belief, God made sure she
had a safe place to live.

Oddly, she didn’t blame God for her husband suddenly dying
just a couple of months earlier, a sad event that led to many of her
problems.She didn’t blame God for taking
away her rented home after many years – the owners decided to sell it -- placing
her initiallyin an apartment with
hateful neighbors and a blasé management who threatened my friend with evictionShe didn’t blame God for not supplying her
with enough funds to do little things, such as repairing her truck.

Nope.She only
thanked God for the positive aspects in her life.

Definitely, God is in the catbird seat.He can’t do a thing wrong and gets all the
praise when things go right.

In fact, that’s why Christianity invented the devil.Who has to be responsible for all the
negative things that happen?In that
scenario, God provides strength to overcome the evil caused by Satan.How convenient.

There really was no choice for early Christians who had
grown up believing in Judaism, which doesn’t have a devil.They believe only in God.When things go wrong, they blame
themselves.Amidst troubles, they must
have disobeyed some arcane heavenly law, and so God punished them.Even such a catastrophic event as the
eviction of millions of Jews from Spain in the 1400s was labeled the “birth
pangs of the messiah.”Bad things had to
happen to prepare the way for a Jewish king who would reconquer Israel and create
an independent Jewish state there.

Of course, that didn’t happen for another 500 years –
without a messianic figure -- but no Lucifer had to be invoked to cope with the
disaster.

Holocaust: God was angry?

The same is true with the Holocaust, an even more-horrid assault
on Jews.No devil was cited as the
cause.Orthodox Jews actually blamed
their less-religious counterparts for incurring God’s “just” anger, turning
Nazis incredibly into heavenly avengers.

On the other hand, Christians didn’t adopt that “blame self”
approach.Nope, they went even further
into absurdity by imagining a dark avenger who constantly attacks humans.Why?He just wants to do bad things, sort of the Iago of the
netherworld.They drew on images of
pagan gods for inspiration and declared everything outside their narrow tenets
as evil and heretical.

So, today, in the Christian mindset, there are two gods:
one, a supreme deity who spends His eternal days confronting the other one,
called Beelzebub or many other names, who is constantly causing problems.How else could Christians explain the
existence of evil in a world supposedly overseen by a perfectly good deity? No
other monotheistic religion has that problem.In Islam, for example, “genies” try to lead true believers away from the
correct path, sort of a test of faith, but the ultimate decision for good
and/or bad choices rests on the individual.

That’s not the Christian approach.That religion’s far-fetched reasoning brought
into existence such things as witches.After all, someone must be abetting Satan.Why not the old woman who lived down the
street and worked with herbs?She isn’t
friendly; she must be in cahoots with the devil.So must be anyone who dares to raise
intellectual objections to the faith’s absurdist philosophy.

Witch?

Politicians today still blame the devil for some of the
problems that beset our country.No
prayer in school?That’s allowing Lucifer
free rein.Fewer people going to
church?Again, the devil’s evil
work.Less religion in daily life?Yep, that’s Satan again.

It’s an easy answer, of course.It absolves the individual of any blame.While Jews hunker down to study holy books
and look for answers, Christians battle an imaginary, sinister creature they
invented.

And everyone praises God, who doesn’t have to do anything
but take credit when something positive happens.Actually, Christianity must insist on the existence
of the devil.Without Satan to kick
around, churches would lose support from frightened and gratefully deluded
members, like my friend.

Long-time religious
historian Bill Lazarus regularly writes about religion and religious history
with an occasional foray into American culture. He also speaks at various
religious organizations throughout Florida. He holds an ABD in American
Studies from Case Western Reserve University and an M.A. in communication from
Kent State University. You can reach him at wplazarus@aol.com.

He is the
author of the famed novel TheUnauthorized Biography of
Nostradamus as well as The Last Testament of Simon Peter;
The Gospel Truth: Where Did the Gospel Writers Get Their Information;
Noel: The Lore and Tradition of Christmas Carols;and Comparative
Religion for Dummies. His books are available on
Amazon.com, Kindle, bookstores and via various publishers. He can also be
followed on Twitter.

About Me

During his career, Bill has been a newspaper reporter, magazine writer/editor, advertising copywriter and writer/editor of NASCAR programs, among other jobs. He has won three international awards for stories and programs while working for International Speedway Corp. and was named 2000 Florida Feature Writer of the Year.
He has published four books to date and his writing has appeared in hundreds of local, regional, state and national publications.